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Alleged Assassins Caught on Dubai Surveillance Tape

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Re: Alleged Assassins Caught on Dubai Surveillance Tape

#11

Of the two methods currently being used to deal with the militant Islamic fanatics, the 'War On Terror' has only really achieved in causing mass terror amongst our own people and imprison hundreds of innocent people because our government's criteria for 'wrong place and wrong time' were basically Afghanistan and post-invasion. However the allegedly Israeli approach causes virtually no terror to our own people (in fac…

Targeted assassinations remove problems in organizations, but don't necessary secure territory. Aside from securing territory other upsides of the War on Terror approach are getting to consolidate security at home and using war abroad to funnel money to friendly contractors and black ops front companies. The fate of Al-Quaeda doesn't really matter at they're not a significant threat to the state.

Re: Alleged Assassins Caught on Dubai Surveillance Tape

#12
post #4
post #2

The amount of effort that would need to go into creating that video and the facts that the article asserts is just impressive: -figuring out the group of people -how everyone entered the country -all of their phone communication while they were in the country, including finding out their numbers -how they spent money inside the country -their motions inside the country -where they went after they left the country

They probably got it from the secret service? Those likely have most of this information in a database and can get it with the the press of a button.

That would be a pretty impressive database.

Re: Alleged Assassins Caught on Dubai Surveillance Tape

#13
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The collateral damage includes political fallout, damage to bilateral relations with friendly countries, and an increase in the risk of being treated as a pariah.

Are you talking about the collateral damage of (e.g.) invading Iraq or Afghanistan? Or are you talking about the collateral damage of using hit squads to take out terrorist leaders?

GP seemed to be trying to say that targeted assassinations didn't have collateral damage. I was trying to say that it did.

Re: Alleged Assassins Caught on Dubai Surveillance Tape

#15
post #14

Flagged. What's this Mossad PR stunt doing on HN?

[deleted]

I cannot make myself believe world's and especially mid-east's most feared inteligence service making mistakes in this level (Security cams ha? Who knew!). This case is more like a message telling "we come, we find, we kill your leader wherever he is and btw don't forget to comment us on Youtube". That's why I called it a stunt.

Re: Alleged Assassins Caught on Dubai Surveillance Tape

#16
post #7
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about the collateral damage of (e.g.) invading Iraq or Afghanistan? Or are you talking about the collateral damage of using hit squads to take out terrorist leaders?

The collateral damage of sanctioned assassinations.

exactly. Is it worse in the eyes of the world to say that you're 'fighting a war on terror' and invade a country or secretly kill high-ranking enemy officials for years before finally getting caught?

The second is more expedient, but if you kill the wrong person at the wrong time, you can probably cause yourself a lot more harm than good. Imagine if the US killed Saddam Hussein by poisoning his breakfast!

Re: Alleged Assassins Caught on Dubai Surveillance Tape

#17
post #8

Of the two methods currently being used to deal with the militant Islamic fanatics, the 'War On Terror' has only really achieved in causing mass terror amongst our own people and imprison hundreds of innocent people because our government's criteria for 'wrong place and wrong time' were basically Afghanistan and post-invasion. However the allegedly Israeli approach causes virtually no terror to our own people (in fac…

The thing is who decides who gets killed and who not. You could argue that Bush caused the massacre of thousands of Iraqis, or something similar for past Israeli leaders. Does that mean that we can assassinate them? W/out even a fair trial? Once you go through that path, things get scaringly fuzzy. It reminds me of the idea -popular in Latin America- that there are bad dictators and good dictators (pro markets, etc.)…

Good/bad dictators is a well known debate. "King" is an old term for "[military] dictator".

One bad problem is that most every king/dictator made certain to put his own relatives in positions of power. That means that the leadership competence in future generations will be very varied.

From history studies, somewhere between 25%-75% of my country's royalty were total asshats. When you have a fixed incompetent leadership that is very hard to change, then employees/citizens/etc will suffer.

There are more problems, like that you just can't tell an absolute ruler, which has been brought up for the job, all the things he needs to hear. [Edit: A dictator can be said to have an alternative version of "Kill your darlings", when someone complains about his worst ideas...]

Edit: To sum, I'm with Churchill on this: "... democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Edit: Some points of grammar.

Re: Alleged Assassins Caught on Dubai Surveillance Tape

#18
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I cannot make myself believe world's and especially mid-east's most feared inteligence service making mistakes in this level (Security cams ha? Who knew!). This case is more like a message telling "we come, we find, we kill your leader wherever he is and btw don't forget to comment us on Youtube". That's why I called it a stunt.

Did it not enter your mind that this video comes from Dubai security services and not Israel?

The real question is the motivation of Dubai in making and releasing this video. I highly doubt that it's as an advertisement for the mossad (even if it may end up coming off as such).

Re: Alleged Assassins Caught on Dubai Surveillance Tape

#19
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I cannot make myself believe world's and especially mid-east's most feared inteligence service making mistakes in this level (Security cams ha? Who knew!). This case is more like a message telling "we come, we find, we kill your leader wherever he is and btw don't forget to comment us on Youtube". That's why I called it a stunt.

Hotels are full of security cameras these days. That's perhaps why the assassination victim thought he could travel to a hotel safely even though he surely had deadly enemies. The story, which is worth discussing among hackers, is how the assassins circumvented the security cameras to operate in what was, as it appears, a foreign country for them.

After edit: this quotation from the submitted article, "The door on al-Mabhouh’s room was latched and chained from the inside, and there was no blood evidence," shows more tradecraft than I have for leaving a modern, secure hotel room and ensuring that the assassination scene will yield little evidence and not be discovered at first.

Re: Alleged Assassins Caught on Dubai Surveillance Tape

#20

Of the two methods currently being used to deal with the militant Islamic fanatics, the 'War On Terror' has only really achieved in causing mass terror amongst our own people and imprison hundreds of innocent people because our government's criteria for 'wrong place and wrong time' were basically Afghanistan and post-invasion. However the allegedly Israeli approach causes virtually no terror to our own people (in fac…

A fair number of innocents get caught in the crosshairs of the Israel. A targeted assassination by Mossad killed the wrong man [1], Palestinian civilians have been used as human shields [2], Amnesty International found that Israeli military checkpoints are a "key cause of high rates of unemployment and poverty" among the Palestinians [3], and a UN report concluded that "there was strong evidence to establish that numerous serious violations of international law, both humanitarian law and human rights law, were committed by Israel during the military operations in Gaza" [4].

To be clear, I'm not taking a side on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Crimes are being committed on both sides daily. The above evidence is presented only to debunk your claim that the Israeli approach "has no collateral damage and only a minor amount of innocents get caught in the cross hairs". That's a rather audacious claim given how messy Israel's struggle with Islamic militants is.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair

[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jan/02/israel1

[3] http://www.amnesty.no/Web.nsf/e94cc2698ef66716c1256a03006a4d...

[4] http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32057&Cr=pa...

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